


Catlike

by applecameron



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 09:12:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7568521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecameron/pseuds/applecameron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anyone who met Arthur would be comfortable calling him catlike, but for all the wrong reasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catlike

Anyone who met Arthur would be comfortable calling him catlike, but for all the wrong reasons. 

It's not the reflexes, which are, indeed, catlike, a benefit of some early gymnastics or dance training or something. Someone taught him to move, long before they taught him to kill, that's for sure. 

Nor is it the swift, silent attacks - God knows, Eames was qualified to judge _that_. He had suffered plenty of Arthur's attacks during the program's heyday. Sometimes he thought all of Project Somnacin boiled down to their rivalry, Arthur's weapons versus Eames' out-of-the-box mutability, clumsy metaphors for America's love affair with precision technology, which led to arguably rigid thinking, and the more traditional love of leveraging human intelligence. Eames's forgery, viewed through that lens, was the ultimate in social engineering. He and Arthur, though - they were well-matched. Yin and Yang. 

It's not the way he can focus on an action unfolding in utter stillness, positively unblinking. (Positively creepy, sometimes. Is he even breathing when he does that? Eames can't always tell.) 

It's not the grooming, even. And Arthur is always well-groomed. And a good thing, otherwise he looks all of 12 years old even though the man's what, 35? Something like that. Cats groom and Arthur moisturizes. 

No, the reason Arthur is catlike is very simple: Arthur is an apex predator. 

Like all apex predators, he is almost laughably overqualified to decimate his average prey. His spurts of energy are magnificent to behold, his claws, terrifyingly sharp. 

Like all apex predators, when he's not expending all that energy being boundlessly awesome and terrifying and chasing down the extraction equivalent of an antelope, he lounges carelessly like you and the rest of the world WOULD NOT BLOODY BELIEVE. 

"Christ, Arthur, are you going to get off that chaise even _once_ today?!" He aims a kick at the offending furniture Arthur's draped bonelessly over, where the windows are letting in an admittedly perfect-looking amount of Portuguese sun. Misses. 

Arthur blinks and ignores him, except for the barest hint of disdainful sniff. 

Touché, kitty. 


End file.
